A suspected supply chain cyber incident that includes Oracle Cloud has drawn attention from cybersecurity researchers and enterprise users alike. According to cybersecurity firm CloudSEK, a threat actor identified as “rose87168” claims to have accessed and extracted sensitive data from Oracle Cloud systems, including files and passwords associated with over 140,000 customer environments.

The data—allegedly obtained from Oracle’s Single Sign-On (SSO) and Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) systems—includes encrypted credentials, Java KeyStore (JKS) files, and Enterprise Manager JPS keys. CloudSEK says the attack affects tenants across multiple regions and industries, with six million records reportedly compromised.

The activity was first observed in March 2025. In addition to listing the data for sale, the attacker has also used an X account to follow Oracle-related profiles, a move researchers believe may be intended to identify or pressure affected organisations.

Ransom demands and potential exploits

CloudSEK’s report suggests the threat actor has been active since January 2025 and is now demanding payment from companies included in the dataset. The actor is also said to be requesting help to decrypt the credentials in exchange for sharing parts of the data.

The breach appears to have involved the “login.(region-name).oraclecloud.com” endpoint, which is usually used to authenticate users on Oracle Cloud platforms. CloudSEK suspects that the attacker exploited an Oracle WebLogic Server vulnerability to access login services across different regions.

While the actor has no prior known history, researchers have noted the use of advanced tactics and an awareness of Oracle’s infrastructure.

CloudSEK has assigned a high-severity rating to the incident, citing risks such as data leaks, unauthorised access, and broader supply chain vulnerabilities if the stolen credentials are decrypted. The exposure of key files could, in theory, allow attackers to compromise systems connected to affected Oracle environments.

In response, CloudSEK has recommended immediate action from organisations using Oracle Cloud. Suggested steps include resetting credentials, conducting forensic investigations, monitoring dark web sources for leaked data, and reinforcing access controls.

Oracle denies any breach of its cloud systems

Following reports of a possible breach, Oracle has responded by stating that no intrusion into its cloud infrastructure has occurred. A company spokesperson told The Register that the credentials circulating online are not linked to Oracle Cloud and that no customer data has been exposed.

“There has been no breach of Oracle Cloud,” the spokesperson said. “The published credentials are not for the Oracle Cloud. No Oracle Cloud customers experienced a breach or lost any data.”

The denial comes after a user claiming to be behind the incident posted on a cybercrime forum, offering what they described as Oracle Cloud customer data for sale. The individual also uploaded a file to one of Oracle’s login servers—specifically login.us2.oraclecloud.com—as apparent proof of access. The file contained an email address tied to the seller and was archived on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine earlier this year.

Security researchers explore possible entry points

Security analysts reviewing the claims noted that the affected Oracle Cloud login server appeared to be running Oracle Fusion Middleware 11G as recently as February 2025. CloudSEK believes the server may not have been patched against CVE-2021-35587, a known critical vulnerability in Oracle Access Manager’s OpenSSO Agent.

If unpatched, that vulnerability could allow an attacker to gain access without authentication via a publicly available exploit. Whether this route was used in the alleged intrusion has not been confirmed, and Oracle has not commented further on the security posture of its login servers.

Data listing and extortion attempts surface online

On March 21, a user going by “rose87168” listed six million records for sale on BreachForums, claiming the data included Java KeyStore files, encrypted SSO and LDAP passwords, and Enterprise Manager keys. While the exact number of potentially affected organisations remains unclear, the attacker shared domain names of companies allegedly caught in the exposure and suggested that those wishing to avoid publication could pay for their information to be removed.

No specific asking price has been disclosed publicly, but the attacker reportedly approached Oracle with a demand for more than $200 million in cryptocurrency in exchange for full disclosure of the attack. That request was not accepted.

The forum post also included a call for help in decrypting the credentials. The attacker claimed they were unable to access the full dataset themselves but offered to share portions of it with anyone willing to assist.

The post Reports of Oracle Cloud data breach raise questions amid denials appeared first on TechWire Asia.

While Java remains one of the most used programming languages, changes brought about by Oracle have had an impact on users. While Oracle does not own Java in the sense of owning the programming language itself, it is the current steward of Java Standard Edition (Java SE) and Java Enterprise Edition (Java EE) technologies, which are widely used for building enterprise-scale applications.

Oracle acquired these technologies when it bought Sun Microsystems in 2010. Since then, Oracle has been responsible for the development and support of Java SE and Java EE. It’s important to note that Java is an open-source programming language, and the development of the language involves contributions from a large community of developers and organizations, not just Oracle.

Oracle has been making changes to its licensing and pricing policies, which are starting to impact Java users. For example, support for Java 6 and 7 has ended, while Oracle will continue to release new updates on its public websites for individual users or for non-production, development, or testing purposes.

However, commercial use of those public releases in production is restricted and requires a commercial license. This is being accomplished through a change in the license agreement for all Java SE 8 Updates released after January 2019.

“Oracle provides Customers with Oracle Premier Support on Oracle Java SE products as described in the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy. For product releases after Java SE 8, Oracle will designate only certain releases as Long-Term-Support (LTS) releases. Java SE 8, 11, 17 and 21 are LTS releases. Oracle intends to make future LTS releases every two years, meaning the next planned LTS release is Java 21 in September 2023.

For the purposes of Oracle Premier Support, non-LTS releases are considered a cumulative set of implementation enhancements of the most recent LTS release. Once a new feature release is made available, any previous non-LTS release will be considered superseded,” said Oracle in its Java Supporting Roadmap.

Despite Oracle ending support for Java 6 and 7, Azul – a platform company that is 100% focused on Java – continues to provide timely security updates and ongoing support for Java 6 and Java 7. Running older versions of Oracle Java in production poses a potential risk that can be remedied by simply switching the JVM from Oracle to Azul.

Using Azul support for older versions of Java also manages the cost and business disruption of upgrading applications to later versions of Java, and lets the business upgrade applications at their own pace rather than in response to Oracle’s support policy.

Alternatives to Oracle Java

According to Azul’s State of Java Survey and Report, 98% of organizations surveyed still use Java in their software applications or infrastructure, and 57% of those organizations indicate that Java is the backbone of most of their applications. When including Java-based frameworks, libraries and other languages that use the Java Virtual Machine (JVM), the data shows that Java continues to play a fundamental role in today’s enterprises.

The survey studied responses from more than 2,000 Java users globally to unveil unparalleled insights into how Java holds its ground in today’s dynamic technology environment and its impact on enterprises large and small.

The report also indicated that 82% of organizations using Oracle Java said they are concerned about the new Java SE Universal subscription pricing introduced in January. This is the fourth major licensing and pricing change in four years. As such, 72% of respondents said they were considering open-source alternatives such as OpenJDK, and of those who weren’t, 14% said it hadn’t occurred to them that they could.

Despite this, Oracle remains a dominant player in the Java market. However, 74% of organizations said they also use a JDK from at least one OpenJDK provider. Around 60% of companies have chosen an OpenJDK distribution over Oracle Java SE.

Why Java still plays a critical role in organizations

Despite the availability of a variety of programming languages today, 90% of the survey respondents said they are still using Java in a cloud environment. As the cloud landscape transforms, organizations are continuing their advance to the cloud for scalability, flexibility, productivity, and agility – yet cost and security remain two of the leading challenges.

Many organizations say they’re not fully utilizing the cloud. Given the economic challenges today, 95% of organizations have taken steps to lower their cloud costs in the past year. And to reduce public cloud costs, 46% of businesses are taking advantage of a high-performance Java platform to use cloud resources more efficiently.

According to Jevin Jensen, research vice president of Intelligent CloudOps at IDC, enterprises often don’t use all the cloud computing they pay for due to the over-provisioning of virtual servers required to accommodate spikes in demand from ultra high-performing applications and those where end-user experience is paramount. Jensen pointed out that this creates challenges for IT teams facing a difficult budget environment that requires more efficient use of resources.

“Running Java applications and infrastructure with a faster and more efficient JVM can provide superior performance, consistency, and the capacity to address these challenges, gaining tangible business results today,” said Jensen.

Apart from the cloud, there are also security considerations for businesses. Given the widespread impact of a single compromised Java-based logging library (Log4j), there is more emphasis on the ongoing threat of security vulnerabilities in Java applications. Almost 80% of respondents reported being affected by Log4Shell, while nearly half were impacted by the extra time required by their engineering teams to address the vulnerability, and 30% were impacted by attempts to exploit the vulnerability.

“As the State of Java Survey & Report data reveals, Java’s enduring prominence and role in helping enterprises to thrive is undeniable, and high-performance JVMs are playing a pivotal role in meeting application service levels and cloud cost optimization. The choices businesses make around Java directly impact their operational efficiency and the bottom line,” commented Scott Sellers, co-founder and CEO at Azul.

For Sellers, the concerns raised over Oracle’s recent Java licensing and pricing changes also highlight a need for stability and trust in the technology partnerships that businesses form with their strategic vendors.

“Our sole focus is to champion this trust, ensuring that organizations of all sizes can continue to innovate, optimize and grow with the best Java solutions and strategies,” he explained.

The post Oracle licensing and pricing changes see businesses explore Java alternatives appeared first on TechWire Asia.

In the fast-paced world of technology, the last decade has marked significant transformations in analytics. Tracing this evolution, two key trends stand out, fundamentally altering the analytics landscape and setting a path for the future.

The inception of self-service analytics is the first significant transformation to the spotlight. Historically, analytics was predominantly an IT-centric task. IT professionals would compile data from various systems, formulate specialized solutions, and disseminate reports and dashboards to users. This conventional process was a linear and restrictive approach to analytics, limiting the scope and adaptability of data usage and exploration.

The inception of self-service analytics

However, the recent decade has heralded the rise of self-service analytics tools, a shift that has democratized data access and manipulation. Tools like those offered by Oracle Analytics have empowered business users, allowing them a more direct and hands-on interaction with data. This shift has empowered individuals across various sectors to consume, prepare, and explore data, offering direct insights and a deeper understanding of data narratives.

As described by T.K. Anand, executive vice president at Oracle Analytics, in an interview with Tech Wire Asia, this transition has provided more than ease of access. It has broadened the horizon, enabling individuals to utilize data for everyday decision-making, and bolstering various business sectors, including HR, finance, and sales.

The second pivotal transformation is the sweeping move to cloud-based analytics solutions. Traditional on-premises software has given way to SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions, marking a significant transition adopted widely across the industry. This shift to the cloud has made managing large volumes of data more feasible by leveraging the benefits of low-cost data storage and elastic computing capabilities for processing large datasets.

Despite these advancements, challenges persist. The burgeoning volume of data, although more manageably stored and processed in the cloud, still presents a substantial burden for individuals seeking to explore and extract valuable insights. The task remains a complex and overwhelming endeavor, highlighting a pressing need for further innovation.

Meeting the challenges with the new Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence Platform

This necessity for advancement segues into the emerging trend that Anand highlights – the increasing role of machine learning and AI in analytics. In this next wave, the objective is to harness the power of AI and machine learning to automate data analysis, making it a continuous and integrated process. The goal is for these advanced technologies to work tirelessly behind the scenes to analyze data, uncover insights, offer recommendations, and guide decisions, even in your absence.

This innovative approach aims to reduce the human burden of data exploration, making insights more accessible and understandable, and ensuring that data-driven decision-making becomes integral to business operations.

Addressing these challenges, Oracle introduced the Fusion Data Intelligence Platform, a reflection of Oracle’s dual strategy as both a cloud infrastructure and applications provider. This platform emphasizes the importance of quality data, mitigating the “garbage in, garbage out” issue and allowing for a comprehensive view of customers, products, and employees.

“We provide rich, out-of-the-box analytics and machine learning models for each subject area and applications that use these analytics to offer tailored experiences,” Anand detailed, emphasizing the platform’s robust capabilities. Designed specifically for a fusion suite of applications, including ERP and HCM, the platform is built to complement the Oracle Analytics Cloud, part of OCI.

Anand highlighted the platform’s goal to enhance user experiences and ensure everyday data use for average users without requiring extensive data analyst expertise. This commitment guarantees that individuals in various roles can seamlessly integrate data insights into their workflow, reflecting Oracle’s comprehensive approach to making analytics more accessible.

“The objective is to simplify the adoption of analytics for Fusion customers, whether in ERP, financials, HR, or supply chain, and offer user experiences that enable effortless daily data use,” Anand added. Despite the advancements in self-service analytics and tool accessibility, the necessity for expertise remains a notable challenge, which the Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence Platform aims to alleviate.

Oracle Fusion Platform multifaceted impact: From healthcare to financial services

The Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence Platform stands out with its exceptional ability to efficiently integrate data from diverse industries such as health, financial services, and utilities. The platform does not merely compile data in isolated sets but establishes meaningful connections between them, enabling seamless integration between disparate systems, such as CRM and accounting, within its pre-integrated suite.

Oracle aims to create a unified and comprehensive data system in healthcare to enhance patient care and optimize healthcare operations. “We aim to collect data from multiple healthcare systems within a Health Network, particularly in the U.S., where the healthcare system is notably complex,” explains Anand. Known as Patient 360 in the Health Data Intelligence Platform, this initiative focuses on consolidating all patient data, including visits to primary doctors, specialist referrals, test locations, and pharmacies.

Oracle plans to extend this integration even further. Consider a healthcare provider network that utilizes various electronic health record (EHR) systems like Cerner and Epic alongside Fusion for HR and accounting. Anand outlines the ambitious goal: to combine all this data from non-Oracle EHRs like Epic and provide a comprehensive view of their patient population. This integration enables Oracle’s CRM system to initiate targeted health campaigns, enhancing general health trends for specific populations like the elderly, thereby ensuring efficient and effective outreach.

Moving beyond healthcare, Oracle’s approach to data integration resonates across various industries. Anand emphasized that building a “data lakehouse,” a unified and integrated data system, is undoubtedly complex, but Oracle is prepared to meet this challenge head-on.

The platform is committed to ensuring seamless data integration across industries beyond merely consolidating data. “We aim to provide out-of-the-box analytics and machine learning in AI,” Anand notes. With its extensive involvement in numerous business and industry-specific applications, Oracle is uniquely positioned to resolve diverse data challenges and ensure smooth integration, analytics, and insights across the board.

In discussing the potential drawbacks or criticisms of Oracle’s Fusion Data Intelligence Platform, Anand acknowledges its early deployment stage. He expresses Oracle’s readiness to face and learn from the inevitable mistakes on this journey.

“In healthcare, the technology foundation from the Cerner side was not as robust because they were not on a modern technology stack like OCI,” Anand shares. This insight highlights an area where Oracle anticipates technological challenges and strives to transition the Health Intelligence Platform into a seamless, clean SaaS offering on OCI within the coming year. The ongoing work since the Cerner acquisition stands as a testament to Oracle’s commitment to overcoming these technological hurdles.

The fragmented nature of the U.S. healthcare system presents another significant obstacle. In contrast to the Fusion side, where data acquisition is more straightforward, healthcare data integration involves intricate connections to various diverse systems. “Cerner has already started developing connectors to different systems, including connections to Epic, a main competitor. This is something Oracle needs to continue to improve to effectively navigate the U.S. healthcare landscape,” Anand explains.

A global perspective: Insights from Singapore and Australia

Looking globally, Anand highlights the advances in countries like Australia and Singapore, noting their success in healthcare data integration. “Singapore represents a dream state that we aspire to achieve,” he adds, highlighting the nation as a model of efficient healthcare data management. Oracle’s prior experience developing a health data platform for Australia’s public health system also offers valuable insights and lessons for addressing the U.S. healthcare system’s unique challenges.

While acknowledging the distinct challenges, particularly in healthcare data integration and technology upgrade, Oracle is proactively working on solutions. The active development of connectors to diverse systems and the relentless pursuit of technological advancement demonstrate the company’s commitment to ensuring the Fusion Data Intelligence Platform’s success.

Generative AI: Crafting personalized and effective solutions

In AI’s diverse and dynamic landscape, Oracle significantly emphasizes leveraging generative AI to enhance platform and application dimensions. In healthcare, Oracle utilizes generative AI to bolster the connection between doctors and patients. As Anand outlines, generative AI paves the way for highly personalized, context-rich messages from healthcare providers to patients. This nuanced approach facilitates targeted outreach, reminding patients of upcoming check-ups, follow-up appointments, or necessary screenings, crafted based on their individual medical history.

“Imagine if your doctor is sending you a message, inviting you to come in and do your annual checkup…and also noting, ‘Hey, last time when we met, we had these follow-ups, and you might be due for this colon screening and whatnot.’ So, we can use generative AI to craft messages that provide a personalized experience,” Anand explains, highlighting the potential for enhanced patient care and engagement.

Expanding beyond healthcare, Oracle’s embrace of generative AI echoes in its Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC). Within OAC, generative AI is an ‘analytics assistant,’ envisioned as a copilot for users navigating data exploration and visualization. This assistant allows users to engage in seamless, natural language interactions, ask questions, and receive comprehensible responses, enriching the data visualization experience.

When delving into the management and optimization of generative AI, Anand emphasizes the criticality of model tuning. He draws parallels with OpenAI, highlighting a collaborative approach with Cohere, aiming to augment foundational generative AI models for specific industry needs.

“In collaboration with Cohere, we’re working with various generative AI models, including the foundational model which you can adapt for patient care by feeding in extensive data about diseases, X-rays, and medical imaging. This process augments the dataset not available in the public domain, enhancing the intelligence of the model,” Anand notes.

Despite the revolutionary potential of generative AI, Anand acknowledges the potential pitfalls, emphasizing the dedicated, comprehensive training required to hone the models for reliable, accurate outputs. This extensive investment in training ensures the generative AI models’ robustness, ensuring they effectively serve their intended roles across diverse applications.

“Before we feel confident releasing them, substantial effort and computational capacity are invested in training these models to ensure their reliability and accuracy,” Anand concludes, underscoring Oracle’s commitment to realizing the full potential of generative AI within its ecosystem.

The post Oracle Fusion Data Intelligence pioneering the change in analytics appeared first on TechWire Asia.

During Oracle CloudWorld 2023, its recently announced partnership with Microsoft drew significant curiosity. Larry Ellison, Oracle’s CTO, provided clarity in his keynote, highlighting his alignment with Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella. They share a fundamental vision: clouds should be open and interconnected, not isolated.

Today, it is clear that customers engage with multiple cloud platforms and rarely limit themselves to just one. Ellison pointed out, “In the infrastructure realm, four [hyperscalers dominate]: AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google, and us. While numerous application providers exist, they all function within the cloud paradigm. Customers often use services from AWS, Google, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and more. It is our job to ensure these services interconnect seamlessly together. For example, if someone wishes to use Salesforce’s sales automation application and then integrate it with an Oracle data warehouse, it should be simple, given the interconnected nature of both clouds.”

Unveiling Oracle’s vision for interconnectivity at the CloudWorld 2023

Ellison emphasized the importance of smooth integration between platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Oracle’s autonomous database or between Microsoft Teams and Oracle. Barriers between clouds should be non-existent, and customers should not face penalties for transferring data. After all, the data is theirs.

Ellison and Nadella believe that interconnected cloud systems are the future, influenced by customers’ evolving needs and their use of multiple cloud services.

Oracle began experimenting with interconnected cloud systems in 2019. Crafting high-speed interconnections was challenging. As a solution, Oracle embedded its cloud services in Azure data centers, allowing users to access Oracle and Microsoft services via the Azure portal without latency.

In a discussion with Oracle EVP, Clay Magouyrk, Judson Althoff, Microsoft’s Chief Commercial Officer, expressed the collaboration’s evolution. Their recent efforts differ significantly from the earlier Oracle Interconnect for Azure initiative.

Althoff emphasized that the initial Interconnect was a pioneering collaboration to enhance user experiences. Through it, Microsoft gained vital insights. The main expectation from both Microsoft and Oracle users was the delivery of high-performance, real-time services, making it crucial to address Interconnect’s latency.

To this end, embedding OCI within Azure was identified as the optimal strategy, providing users with a boundary-free experience. “Users can access the Azure portal, and if they have an existing Azure Cloud consumption commitment, they can effortlessly utilize Oracle services. These services are strategically placed within the same data center, adjacent to each other, ensuring zero latency and delivering the best of both ecosystems,” Althoff explained.

The partnership will start in 12 regions, with plans for future expansion. Certain hero regions stand out, packed with computing and AI resources. With the rising deployment of generative AI solutions, such as Microsoft Copilots integrated with the Oracle database, users can expect even better experiences.

Karan Batta, Vice President of Product at Oracle, touched upon this partnership, noting that many customers have committed to Azure while having a significant Oracle presence on-premises. The question for them is how to integrate these two environments seamlessly.

Oracle CloudWorld 2023: Oracle and Azure working in harmony

This collaboration allows customers to use their funds to access Oracle data services. “We will indeed be replacing the OCI infrastructure within Azure data centers,” Batta said. “Another advantage for customers is the ability to leverage the benefits they receive from Oracle programs. If you have Unlimited License Agreements (ULA) or options like ‘Bring Your Own License’ (BYOL), those can be used.

Additionally, if you have a support agreement with Oracle, we offer a program that allows a reduction in your support bill when using our cloud products. This benefit will be available to customers accessing data services through Azure as well.”

Batta highlighted the crucial flexibility this offers. While the services are technologically and functionally identical, commercial agreements require collaboration with Microsoft and Oracle.

The question then arises: Should companies not yet on the cloud choose Oracle or Microsoft Azure?

Batta believes customers will lean towards multiple cloud providers, with their initial choice influenced by their existing investments.

For instance, if they are deeply invested in Microsoft, they might start with Azure. Yet, even in that scenario, they can still utilize services such as the Exadata Database Service and the Oracle Autonomous Database through Azure. However, they will still need to collaborate with Oracle for that. Conversely, a company deeply rooted in Oracle may initiate their journey with OCI. A lot hinges on the specific workflow. If a company is primarily a database-centric organization, that will guide its initial steps.

“I firmly believe that the era of multi-cloud isn’t a matter of choice, [but inevitability.] It’s not about “if” but “when.” Most customers will seek to harness multiple cloud providers, aiming for the best of each one’s offerings,” said Batta.

Oracle’s multi-cloud era: Inevitable and emerging

Corey Sanders, the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Cloud for Industry, agreed with that notion. He highlighted the growing trend towards a multi-cloud strategy and expressed hopes for broader partnerships among cloud providers.

“The appropriate choice heavily depends on the specific challenges a company seeks to overcome. This is why providing people with choices often proves to be the best answer when making decisions. Companies can then determine the optimal path based on their immediate needs,” he added.

One of the primary reasons for choosing Azure was its commendable OpenAI positioning. This allows for the advanced leveraging of data retrieval and generation, showcasing the innovative work Microsoft has consistently delivered.

As Oracle shifts towards a more AI-centric approach, there is speculation regarding its path. Oracle may opt to utilize services from Microsoft or introduce its own offerings. This speculation is heightened as Oracle has yet to announce its support for enhancing generative AI across large language models.

From an AI perspective, Oracle has already discussed its offerings with Cohere. This will be its primary position from an OCI viewpoint. Essentially, Oracle has a three-pronged strategy:

1. At the core, Oracle offers infrastructure, including superclusters, that benefits many startups looking to build base models on top of them.
2. Moving on from that, the strategy targets enterprises — including its OCI customers — that want to develop generative AI capabilities based on their data for their consumption.
3. Lastly, Oracle aims to integrate this intelligence into their applications.

“So, from that perspective, we have our unique strategy. I think it provides great opportunities for Azure customers if they want to build using other services on Azure or leverage other data stored in the database, for instance. Ultimately, it depends on where the customers are and their specific use cases,” Batta emphasized.

Sanders also highlighted that Microsoft is enthusiastic about GPT-4 and the overall GPT stack, appreciating its capabilities. Microsoft maintains openness to a broad array of models, believing in choosing the right model for the right job. Ensuring this level of choice is a fundamental part of its overall strategy.

Oracle’s commitment to Ampere Computing

In a related development underscoring Oracle’s commitment to advancing its cloud capabilities, the company has made a substantial investment in Ampere Computing, a startup known for its innovative processor chips. According to Oracle’s proxy statement, the company prepaid US$104.1 million for processor chips manufactured by Ampere. Furthermore, Oracle has invested an additional US$400 million in Ampere through a convertible note in fiscal 2023.

Ampere’s specialization lies in crafting custom server chips based on Arm technology, positioning them as competitors to the designs produced by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, which utilize X86. Oracle’s substantial financial commitments to Ampere, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars since its inception, are documented in the filings.

This strategic investment in Ampere and its chip purchases are part of Oracle’s dedicated effort to elevate its cloud services, offering them a distinct advantage over rivals. This move parallels the efforts of Amazon.com and Google, with Amazon producing its server chips and Google developing its artificial intelligence processors. The collaboration with Ampere reflects Oracle’s proactive approach to harnessing cutting-edge technologies to bolster its cloud services, further augmenting its partnership with Microsoft and underscoring its commitment to delivering optimal solutions to its customers.

This continual investment and collaboration reaffirm Oracle’s steadfast dedication to evolving alongside technological advancements and customer demands, ensuring its position at the forefront of the cloud and AI industry.

The post Oracle CloudWorld 2023: Everything you need to know about the Oracle and Microsoft partnership appeared first on TechWire Asia.

By this point, you’ve likely utilized a generative AI tool like ChatGPT for various tasks, such as developing an application, crafting a grant proposal, or even completing overdue employee evaluations. Whether you’ve engaged in these activities or simply experimented with posing questions to a large language model, it’s hard not to be struck by the capability of generative AI to produce human-like responses.

What’s next in AI?: Larry Ellison’s keynote highlights at Oracle CloudWorld

So, what’s next on the horizon? Oracle’s CTO Larry Ellison may have some insights. In his recent keynote at Oracle CloudWorld, Ellison spoke about “Oracle’s vision for the future.” According to him, there’s a global competition underway to create the next generation of AI—a superior form of artificial intelligence that promises to shape a brighter future.

“ChatGPT 3.5 is no longer the cutting-edge offering in generative AI, as ChatGPT 4.0 has been released. Over the past 12 months, companies like Cohere and OpenAI have developed new large language models that do more than just generate text. They also create images, compose music, write poetry, and even generate computer code—which hits close to home for many of us. Additionally, we can expect complete self-driving cars from Tesla in the next 12 months,” Ellison added.

However, Oracle has unveiled new generative AI-powered capabilities within its Oracle Fusion Cloud Customer Experience (CX) suite. Leveraging Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) generative AI service, these features seamlessly integrate into current Oracle Fusion Service workflows. The goal is to fine-tune customer service, boost operational efficiency, and allow organizations to improve their overall customer interactions.

Oracle’s approach to cloud computing sets it apart from competitors in several key ways. As highlighted by Larry Ellison, one notable difference is the unique networking infrastructure Oracle employs to interconnect its cloud-based computers.

Oracle utilizes a remote direct memory access (RDMA) network, which allows one computer within the network to access another computer’s memory without interruption to the latter’s operation. That enables rapid data transfer between computers, significantly outpacing conventional network speeds.

Ellison emphasized, “The fact that our standard network across all our clouds utilizes our DMA network means that when we build a computer for training large language models—typically a computer composed of Nvidia GPUs—interconnecting those GPUs results in a computer that runs much more quickly in our cloud compared to others.”

Ellison suggests that Oracle is much faster and far less expensive than other clouds when it comes to training AI models. That’s why Nvidia, Cohere, and Elon Musk’s xAI are all conducting AI training on the Oracle Cloud. Additionally, dozens of other technology leaders and startups are flocking to the Oracle Cloud because it is faster and more economical for building AI models.

A fusion of AI and data security

Built on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Oracle Cloud CX integrates cutting-edge generative AI features that prioritize data security and user privacy. Custom and prebuilt models are hosted on OCI, providing an environment where customer data remains exclusive to the user and is not shared with third-party language model providers. Moreover, only individual clients can access custom models based on their data.

Role-based security is woven directly into Oracle Fusion Service workflows, effectively safeguarding sensitive customer data and limiting content recommendations to authorized service agents.

Adding to its pre-existing suite of AI tools, Oracle Fusion Service incorporates new generative AI capabilities aimed at automating content generation and streamlining processes. These enhancements not only complement the existing AI features but also aim to increase productivity for customer service agents and stakeholders. Here’s what it can do:

• Assisted agent responses: boosts service agent productivity by auto-generating draft replies to customer queries. Particularly useful for high-volume industries like ecommerce and financial services.
• Assisted knowledge articles: streamlines the creation of new knowledge base content by auto-generating articles on emerging issues, letting agents help customers quickly. Ideal for complex sectors like high technology and medical devices.
• Search augmentation: enhances both agent and customer experience by integrating short-form, AI-generated answers in search and chat functionalities. Useful for quickly locating solutions within knowledge bases or other indexed documents.
• Customer engagement summaries: improves productivity by auto-summarizing the critical information in service requests, including customer history and planned actions. This helps with quick decision-making, significantly when issues are escalated.
• Assisted guidance authoring: helps experts easily create a consistent set of triage and troubleshooting questions, ensuring a standardized process for service agents to follow.
• Field service recommendations: increases field technician efficiency by suggesting contextually relevant troubleshooting content, minimizing the need for multiple on-site visits.

Beyond customer service: growing revenue with AI-enhanced Oracle Cloud CX

In a world where customers demand real-time, unified experiences, the real challenge for professionals in marketing, sales, and customer service lies in harnessing the sheer volume and speed of data. With the aid of AI, these professionals are tasked with deciphering this data to glean actionable insights that can enhance customer experiences and foster business growth.

Rob Tarkoff, the executive vice president and general manager of Oracle Cloud CX, said that pre-trained large language models are revolutionizing interactions with people, content, and vital information within organizations. “With a unique combination of traditional and generative AI, running on Oracle Cloud infrastructure and embedded in application flows, Oracle Cloud CX enables customer experience professionals to do their jobs with more accuracy and efficiency to ultimately drive more revenue,” Tarkoff further explained.

New Oracle Cloud CX capabilities include:

• Generative AI for service: speeds up customer service by auto-generating content and streamlining processes. Features include assisted agent responses, knowledge articles, and more.
• Guided campaigns: streamlines marketing and sales by automating personalized, brand-approved campaigns that deliver qualified leads directly to sellers.
• AI-powered account linking: helps sellers by providing complete account visibility, which aids in quicker deal closures and identifies upsell opportunities.
• B2B customer data platform enhancements: offers targeted marketing by scoring sales opportunities based on past engagement and supports complex account hierarchies.
• Intelligent sales orchestration: boosts seller efficiency with automated processes and AI-generated insights, guiding them through complex sales scenarios.
• Advanced field asset monitoring: Enhances field service productivity by giving technicians mobile access to comprehensive asset information, from work orders to warranties.

The recent AI enhancements to Oracle Cloud CX offer practical solutions for streamlining traditionally time-consuming tasks. These updates are expected to improve employee workflows and customer satisfaction, potentially leading to better financial performance.

The post Oracle CloudWorld 2023: Even Elon Musk’s xAI uses Oracle Cloud to do AI training appeared first on TechWire Asia.

Since its inception, corporate universities have been an effective model for businesses to ingrain the value of learning among employees even after they graduate from educational institutions. More importantly, McKinsey reports businesses are acutely aware of the importance of learning in today’s modern business environment  — especially with the chatter surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) replacing traditional roles. 

When pioneers such as General Motors and General Electric started offering standardized in-house training programs about 100 years ago, they focused on imparting lower-level, day-to-day skills. 

In the 1900s, it would have been fanciful to imagine the full-fledged academics that would emerge in later decades — but corporate universities today have made their way into the 21st century. Think McDonald’s Hamburger University or true learning institutions for global corporations such as Apple, Google, Intel, and many more. 

???? Did you know Gen Z actually hates working from home?

You might assume that young professionals would be at the forefront of the push for remote work, but they’re actually the ones who are craving time in the office the most, @akiito7 writes. ????https://t.co/43ZfP61HYC

— Insider Business (@BusinessInsider) July 13, 2022

Do Gen Z prefer corporate universities? 

Those born between 1999 and 2010 have different needs. As a generation shaped by the digital age, climate anxiety, and most recently, COVID-19, they entered the workforce at an unprecedented time — most current entry-level talent has only ever worked remotely or in hybrid settings, according to Forbes. 

Recent survey results, however, show that this generation of workers is eager to return back to the office. The biggest reason for this is physical interaction, which is where corporate universities or campus offices come into play.

Here are some of the biggest benefits businesses and employees enjoy when they establish a corporate university:

• Increased talent retention: Corporate universities increase potential employee retention by providing them with the chance to learn new skills and stay updated with industry trends.

• Attract top talent: Corporate universities help attract top talent by showcasing the company’s commitment to the professional development of its staff — a win-win combination for both employer and employee.
• Reinforces culture: A corporate university aligns with the brand and culture and helps solidify them across employees.
• Supports innovation: Corporate universities are breeding grounds for new thoughts and ideas since their structure fosters natural discussion and collaboration among students.

Googleplex, Apple University, Disney University: Six iconic corporate universities for employees

1. Google’s Googleplex

Googleplex — Google’s Mountain View complex — might be the closest a corporate university has been to a traditional university experience. 

Here, the magic of Google’s corporate learning happens. Employees can:

• Explore spontaneous interactions with each other as learners
• Enjoy the campus’ architecture, which embodies Google’s soul —made of its innovative brand and groundbreaking culture
• Spend up to 20% of the work week on pet projects that uplift their ambition to stratospheric levels

“We’ve always worked with people who were a mix of left and right brain,” says Clive Wilkinson, who designed Googleplex.

“But engineers are very left brain. They might work in teams, but they require a high level of concentration; they sit in front of the computer and crunch formulas in the most extraordinary way.” 

Despite the fun, “it’s a very demanding work culture,” Andrew Laing of DEGW, a company that has done workplace research studies with other technology companies such as Micro­soft, told Metropolis. 

“It’s designed almost as a living environment — it’s much more like being at a university than being in a conventional work environment.”

2. Deloitte University

During the 2008 recession, few tech companies were comfortable taking huge risks — but former Global CEO of Deloitte Barry Salzberg chose to move forward with two of the biggest investments in the company’s history.

One of them was Deloitte’s multi-million dollar learning facility, Deloitte University (DU). 

Launched in 2011, the quarter-mile-long facility sits within the beautiful natural landscape of Westlake, TX, approximately 30 miles northwest of Dallas. 

Here, programs are immersive, active, and led by Deloitte’s leaders. Outside the classroom, students are surrounded by emerging technologies so they can experience firsthand how technology is changing how we live and work.

For example, role-playing and case studies provide interactive sessions that engage learners and drive collaboration. A holographic concierge also provides directions and other information about the digital DU experience.

3. Apple University

The highly secretive Apple University, profiled in detail by the New York Times, was established by Steve Jobs in 2008 to teach staff what it meant to be an Apple employee — educating them about the company’s culture and history.

Courses are not required, only recommended, but getting new employees to enroll is rarely a problem.

A full-time faculty — including instructors, writers, and editors — create and teach the courses. 

Some faculty members come from universities like Yale, Harvard, the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford, and MIT. 

On an internal website available only to Apple staff members, employees could sign up for courses tailored to their positions and backgrounds, according to the New York Times. 

One class, for example, taught founders of recently acquired companies how to smoothly blend resources and talents into Apple. 

Another course, titled “What makes Apple, Apple”, analyzed the difference between the remote from Google’s failed TV initiative with its 78 buttons and the Apple TV remote, which has just seven buttons to teach the “less is more” approach Apple takes with most things, Guardian reported.

4. Disney University

Disney’s corporate university is the learning and development setting that teachers and students dream of  — it’s the Disneyland of education.

Although Disney University is not an accredited institution, courses are primarily designed, developed, and delivered by experienced learning professionals.

Everything here is highly personalized to the Disney brand. 

From training materials to program names, Disney University reminds everyone about Disney’s incredible success over the years. The company’s university introduces the brand when onboarding employees on their very first workday. 

Disney University offers instructor-led classroom sessions as well as e-learning and virtual classrooms. 

The company has expanded its delivery methods to accommodate Disney’s diverse and growing audience, which includes Walt Disney World, Disneyland Resort, Disney Cruise Line, and many more. 

5. Intel Network Builders University

Intel’s University includes a vast collection of online content and incorporates face-to-face technical training. The online content supports virtual learning and has a global outreach. 

It has a wealth of training content on key Intel technologies, pertinent presentations on industry trends, and the technical aspects of NAV deployments. 

This dual-delivery approach supports distance learning and outreach to our global community through an easy-to-use website. It also fosters much-needed peer-to-peer engagement through in-person, hands-on workshops, and technical webinars. 

This corporate University aims to boost the knowledge of professionals from the entire network industry. 

That explains why it’s free, available to a public audience, and focuses on Intel technologies and digital transformation.

6. Oracle University 

Oracle University is the training and certification arm of Oracle.

The company provides the following features:

• Oracle Guided Learning: Realise your cloud application’s value faster with Oracle’s Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) Oracle Guided Learning.
• Oracle Cloud Learning Subscriptions: Build expertise using your cloud applications and services, stay updated with new product releases through real-time training, and practice what you learn through hands-on labs.
• Oracle Certification: Develop in-demand skills, validate your knowledge, and showcase your expertise by earning a globally recognized Oracle Certification.

A one-year subscription to either its cloud or technology courses is US$5,000.

With so many courses to choose from, we recommend you know the role and specialization you want to have. 

If you’re interested in data science or data analytics, you’ll see loads of corporate jobs mentioning Oracle Database, one of the company’s key products.

The post Corporate universities a gateway to a career in tech appeared first on TechWire Asia.

Enterprises increasingly opt for multiple cloud providers to fulfill their needs, with multi-cloud becoming the norm in enterprise technology, as revealed by a study conducted by 451 Research, a division of S&P Global Market Intelligence, and commissioned by Oracle.

Cloud adoption is crucial for enterprises seeking business agility and operational efficiency. Over 90% of APAC respondents agree that the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly accelerated interest and investment in cloud technology.

To tackle challenges like increased remote work and collaboration with new partners and suppliers, organizations have adopted multi-cloud strategies for flexibility and scalability in the evolving landscape.

Key survey findings reveal that 97% of APAC enterprises surveyed either use or plan to use at least two cloud infrastructure providers, and 35% are using or plan to use four or more. Additionally, 95% of APAC respondents indicated they are using or will use at least two cloud application providers (Software-as-a-Service), with over 48% utilizing cloud applications from five or more providers.

Chris Chelliah, Senior Vice President of Technology and Customer Strategy at Oracle Japan and Asia Pacific, noted that customers embrace new cloud providers to accelerate digital transformation goals. They seek to rapidly migrate mission-critical workloads to the cloud without rewriting costs or risks, enabling access to machine learning and AI-driven innovations.

“Unique among hyperscale providers, OCI offers customer choice to deploy workloads where they best fit – on-premises, on the public cloud or even across multiple clouds. With the recent introduction of MySQL HeatWave on AWS and Oracle Database Service for Microsoft Azure, Oracle has broken down the wall between cloud providers, so that customers can achieve their business outcomes,” he added.

Strengthening commitment to Southeast Asia with second cloud region in Singapore

In response to the rapidly growing demand for cloud services in Southeast Asia, Oracle is set to establish a second cloud region in Singapore. This new region is part of a significant expansion, joining Oracle’s existing 41 regions and 10 planned additional public regions.

This region will offer public and private sector clients alternative options for their infrastructure, applications, and data placement, ensuring optimal performance and reduced latency. Customers will have access to a wide range of cloud services for modernizing applications, innovating with data, analytics, and AI, and migrating mission-critical workloads to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). By using both Singapore regions, customers can achieve improved business continuity while maintaining data residency within Singapore.

“With the new region, Oracle offers customers true business continuity and disaster protection while meeting in-country data residency requirements. As a result, we’re extending our commitment to helping organizations in Southeast Asia embrace technologies like AI, machine learning, and IoT to address their most complex challenges and achieve more with less,” said Garrett Ilg, President of Japan & Asia Pacific at Oracle.

Presently, Oracle Cloud Regions in the APAC region include Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Chuncheon, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Sydney, Melbourne, and Singapore.

Banks turn to Oracle in accelerating the move to the cloud

As banks face rising transaction volumes, customer expectations, and competitive challenges, they must adapt quickly. To address this, Oracle introduced Oracle Banking Cloud Services, a suite of modular, cloud-native services. These six services offer scalable corporate account processing, enterprise-wide management, real-time global payment processing, API management, retail onboarding, and new self-service digital capabilities.

Utilizing a microservices architecture, banks can achieve faster modernization and minimized risk. Oracle Banking Cloud Services, available in numerous global cloud regions, can be deployed in alignment with data residency or sovereignty needs. New services include:

• Oracle Banking Accounts Cloud Service: Offers scalable demand deposit account processing and modernization for core banking systems without operational disruption.
• Oracle Banking Payments Cloud Service: Provides a unified engine for real-time payment processing and supports over 15 global payment schemes.
• Oracle Banking Enterprise Limits and Collateral Management Cloud Service: Centralizes limit definitions and collateral management, reducing risk and providing real-time exposure tracking.
• Oracle Banking Origination Cloud Service: Simplifies processes and automates decision-making, offering customized onboarding and origination experiences throughout various business sectors.
• Oracle Banking Digital Experience Cloud Service: Delivers ready-to-use corporate and retail banking experiences with omnichannel digital support, AI, and NLP-based engagement tools.
• Oracle Banking APIs Cloud Service: Enhances customer experience and revenue by embedding banking services across a growing partner ecosystem.

“Banks of today must create integrated, digital ecosystems to meet modern customer needs and stay ahead of the competition,” said Horng Shya Chua, managing director at Oracle Singapore. “With Oracle Banking Cloud Services, banks of all sizes in Singapore are able to innovate rapidly and securely, deliver seamless services across the customer journey and enhance operational efficiency in the leading financial hub in Asia Pacific.”

The post Embracing the Oracle Cloud wave across the APAC region in a multi-cloud world appeared first on TechWire Asia.

For most businesses, using the cloud was no longer an option but a necessity. Data point from Gartner® estimated that total end-user spending on public cloud services worldwide will grow 20.4% in 2022 to US$494.7 billion, up from US$410.9 billion in 2021. In 2023, that total is expected to hit nearly US$600 billion.

However, with rapid cloud adoption, another problem was soon brewing. Businesses were trying to figure out how could they now make the most out of their cloud investments. While organizations mostly started with a single cloud provider, they now find themselves having multiple clouds to deal with, bringing complexity to their workloads.

According to Fitri Abdullah, Managing Director for Oracle Malaysia, organizations of all types now realize that there is no single “default” cloud provider going forward. Instead, customers want a choice of the best cloud for each of their different key workloads.

“Most customers not only want to pick and select their public clouds, but they also want differing deployment choices allowing them to run some workloads on their own cloud infrastructure. The change now is that customers are demanding—and wants—choice. They, not the cloud providers, will be in the driver’s seat when it comes to where and how they deploy cloud,” stated Abdullah.

As such, Abdullah shares six key points that will shape the cloud journey for organizations in 2023.

Multi-cloud deployments.

Firstly, multi-cloud will be the new reality as companies will adopt the best public clouds for each of their key workloads, and its adoption will grow throughout the next decade. In Malaysia, virtually all large financial institutions now use more than one cloud when it comes to applications and infrastructure.  That need for multiple clouds will only grow.

Abdullah also pointed out that some cloud providers are facilitating this trend by locating their respective cloud facilities close together to minimize latency. That ensures that customers using services from both providers get fast response times.

One example is ManagePay Systems Berhad (MPay), The Malaysian fintech and payment solution enterprise is utilizing Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to build a reliable and scalable platform that enables Malaysia’s small businesses to trade online. iStore iSend, a Malaysian holistic end-to-end e-fulfilment company also selected OCI as its preferred cloud infrastructure provider to ride the soaring e-commerce wave in the region and help reduce operational costs.

Secondly, businesses will clamor for deployment choices in 2023. Abdullah stated that the use of what once was called “hybrid,” is now “distributed” cloud and is taking off. In the distributed cloud model, companies run some workloads outside public clouds and others in company-controlled data centers. This is typically done for compliance, regulatory, performance, or other reasons.

“This mix-and-matching is great for companies that must keep some corporate and/or customer data segregated but also be able to “burst” analytics or other resource-intensive workloads up into a public cloud as needed. This is tricky since organizations must carefully balance technology deployed across on-premises, private, and public cloud infrastructure,” explained Abdullah.

AIA Malaysia, for example, is continuing to rely on Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer to run its businesses and help adapt to unpredictable business environments. It selected Exadata, the world’s fastest database platform, to run business-critical workloads, including core banking systems and IT infrastructure.

“No one should confuse a cohesive multi-cloud and hybrid strategy now required with the sort of free-for-all that kicked off the early days of cloud computing. Back then departments–even individuals–inside companies launched cloud services willy-nilly, often without the permission, or even knowledge, of IT. Today’s distributed cloud scenarios must be carefully designed to ensure interoperability and good governance from their inception. The takeaway is that cloud providers must meet business and government customers where they are instead of pushing for all data and applications to be forklifted into a specific provider’s cloud,” added Abdullah.

A sovereign cloud journey with HCM capabilities. 

Next is the sovereign cloud. With the old model of putting one cloud data center in a region to serve multiple nations becoming a relic, businesses must realize that failure to comply with data sovereignty rules can lead to significant fines — potentially hundreds of millions of dollars — not to mention incalculable brand damage.

“Countries and localities that must keep data in specified geographies should make sure their cloud of choice can accommodate that key requirement. Indeed some Gen 1 cloud providers have yet to do more than issue announcements about their intentions to offer sovereign cloud,” said Abdullah.

The next point is that organizations will adopt cloud-based HCM to mitigate the effects of volatility. For Abdullah, cloud-based HCM, equipped with AI, is a huge help for organizations. By automating common, time-consuming workloads, these systems make onboarding new hires faster and easier.

“AI-enabled digital assistants collect data from employees and then interpret and answer questions using natural language processing (NLP). These chatbots expedite common tasks, minimizing calls and email to HR pros. Even better, the assistants remain useful throughout employee tenure by guiding people through equipment requisitions, expense reporting, and other tasks,” said Abdullah.

In fact, embedding AI into applications makes people more efficient: an employee who spends three hours less per week keying in data, for example, has three hours to ask questions about the data, potentially finding ways to save money or boost revenue. Overall, Abdullah believes smart use of technology for HCM helps businesses boost productivity; lower administrative costs; better manage staff levels; and improve talent retention–all table stakes for trying times.

PETRONAS is one such company that is benefitting from this having embarked on a global HR transformation program in 2019. The company decided to move to a more modern, scalable cloud system to meet its growing business needs, and hence it chose to partner with Oracle and deploy Oracle Cloud HCM which went live successfully in November 2021.

Democratizing data and ESG can influence cloud investments. 

The fifth point is about democratizing access and analytics of data. AI technologies like machine learning (ML) are already being embedded into corporate systems to lay the groundwork for this data democratization. To further this push, companies must deploy  “augmented analytics” to make data understandable to “mere mortals,” i.e., business people and not just data scientists who know how to build and test models.

“Perhaps even better are scenarios where ML-fueled analytics push relevant reports or alerts to managers based on past queries, the manager’s job function, and other factors. How nice to get the proof point you need before you even ask for it!” he added.

Fast analysis and access to pertinent data can drastically improve performance in applications ranging from  Formula 1 automobile and SailGP sailboat racing to fraud detection, the need for real-time data access will be another key driver going forward.

Lastly, ESG will be a key factor for organizations. Consumers want to know how products and services are sourced, manufactured, and delivered, while an increasing number want to do business with companies with strong environmental social and governance (ESG) values. Smart companies are taking up the challenge with action, not mere lip service.

Research shows that the entire supply chain must be considered in calculating a company’s impact on the environment as an estimated 90% of a company’s greenhouse emissions emanate from its supply chain.

Unsurprisingly, companies across sectors say they do all they can to ensure that their sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution practices are sustainable over time. But in reality, many are just scratching the surface.  In its Deloitte 2022 CXO Sustainability Report,  the consulting firm found that more than one-third of organizations are implementing just one of five “needle-moving” sustainability actions.

To address this profound challenge, businesses need a  complete and constantly updated view of their inventories as well as that of their suppliers and distribution partners And, as noted above, they need world-class analytics to parse this data. Armed with these tools they are better able to start sourcing and manufacturing products closer to buyers thereby minimizing mileage and fuel costs of shipping. They can also better optimize warehousing to predict or even prevent shortages and finetune supply chain planning to cut the overall environmental impacts of their business.

“Importantly, we must realize that no company is an island. Each must work in concert with its suppliers and other partners to forge an efficient and ethical supply chain. Companies that finetune their supply chain and other operations through the use the technologies, can truthfully claim to have minimized their negative impact on the planet and can affix that reputation to their brand. And environmentally concerned consumers will take notice,” concluded Abdullah.

With that said, the cloud journey for organizations can be made much simpler and less complicated if businesses were to understand how they can best make their cloud investments. These six points indicate the demands of the industry that businesses would most likely look into when it comes to their cloud journey and expansion in 2023.

The post The cloud journey can no longer be a one-cloud-fits-all appeared first on TechWire Asia.

Many organizations are looking to digitalize their businesses and are taking the necessary steps to move their operations to the cloud. Having said that, Oracle Corp and Microsoft Corp recently revealed the general availability of Oracle Database Service for Microsoft Azure.

With this new offering, Microsoft Azure customers can easily provision, access, and monitor enterprise-grade Oracle Database services in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) with a familiar experience. Users can migrate or build new applications on Azure and then connect to high-performance and high-availability managed Oracle Database services such as Autonomous Database running on OCI.

What Azure and OCI multi-cloud capabilities can offer

Thousands of customers have relied on Microsoft and Oracle software to run their mission-critical applications during the last 20 years. Hundreds of enterprises have used secure and private interconnections in 11 different global regions, including Singapore since Oracle and Microsoft teamed up to launch the Oracle Interconnect for Microsoft Azure in 2019.

“Microsoft and Oracle have a long history of working together to support the needs of our joint customers, and this partnership is an example of how we offer customer choice and flexibility as they digitally transform with cloud technology. Oracle’s decision to select Microsoft as its preferred partner deepens the relationship between our two companies and provides customers with the assurance of working with two industry leaders,” said Corey Sanders, corporate vice president, Microsoft Cloud for Industry and Global Expansion.

As such, Microsoft and Oracle are extending this collaboration to further streamline the multi-cloud experience with Oracle Database Service for Microsoft Azure. In fact, this is a component of Oracle’s strategy to support customers by providing them with the cloud services they require, wherever they need them, according to Leo Leung, vice president of product management at Oracle, during a press briefing recently.

“In many cases, the public cloud is perfect for the workload or set of tasks that the customer wants to perform and we’re continuing to expand that. We currently have 39 hyperscale cloud regions worldwide locations and [further expansion is planned].”

The public cloud isn’t the only one that customers are interested in or request for, he continued. Being able to provide services on-premises is crucial since between 60% and 80% of workloads, particularly mission-critical workloads, are still on-premises. Recently, they did this with Dedicated Region announcements.

Dedicated Region is an on-premises cloud that brings all of Oracle’s cloud services closer to on-premises legacy applications and data that might never move to the public cloud.

Leung stated, “Over the years, the data cloud customer and this database service for Azure is just another component of our overall strategy, in this case, to offer our services across the clouds into Azure.

Modernizing customers’ database services approach

The amount of data that enterprises are gathering, managing, and analyzing on a daily basis has grown enormously as a result of their fast expansion. The use of legacy database models, which are unable to keep up with the rate of business expansion and the resulting rise in data, is a typical data burden.

When asked how easy it is for businesses to transition from a legacy database approach to a modern one, Leung said that customers have a choice. “If customers feel comfortable with moving to a completely automated service and serverless type of approach where all the common management tasks are completed for them, there is an option to use the autonomous database. That’s part of why we offer multiple flavors – to give customers the options of continuing with their existing system or moving to something that’s more “hands-off”,” he explained.

Are there risks behind not modernizing their database approach?

Steve Zivanic, Global VP Database and Autonomous Services, Oracle, claims that each business has its own unique set of business requirements. “Some customers continue to want to run on-premises, on Exadata database machines. There are some customers that want to move to a cloud on-premises environment like Exadata Cloud at Customer or Dedicated Region. Then, you have some customers who want to go fully public cloud or a combination of all 3,” he said.

The customer can move at their own pace depending on their business requirements, and most significantly, what their applications dictate what their applications require, according to his conclusion that Oracle is highly open and collaborative in relation to solving their business criteria.

The post Oracle and Microsoft expand its partnership in revolutionizing database services appeared first on TechWire Asia.

In fact, cloud security becomes essential as businesses look to defend against security vulnerabilities from inside and outside the firewall that is resulting in more breaches and exposed data. Gartner estimates that through 2023, at least 99% of cloud security failures will be the customer’s fault. This is why, cloud users and administrators are now expected to know how cloud security services work, configure them correctly and maintain their cloud deployments.

“Organizations are just as confident critical applications and data can be safely hosted in a cloud environment as they are on-premises. So, the question becomes one of best fit; OCI’s cloud infrastructure design and new security services are very purposeful and prescriptive based on the hindsight of other cloud options in the market and the complexities and lack of automation other providers’ customers encounter. Oracle has now made cloud security easy to consume and affordable for its customers,” said Jay Bretzmann, Security Program director, IDC.

While there is a myriad of cybersecurity services available in the industry, integrating them into the current cloud capabilities can be a bit of a challenge. With the public cloud being adopted the most by businesses, having cloud-based security that can easily secure cloud deployments and applications with simple, prescriptive, and integrated services as well as do not require additional investment is top of the agenda.

As such, Oracle is expanding the built-in security services and capabilities of its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to help businesses protect their cloud applications and data against emerging threats. The OCI will be offering five new capabilities for threat management, including a new built-in and cloud-native firewall service and enhancements to Oracle Cloud Guard and Oracle Security Zones.

The new capabilities include:

• OCI Network Firewall: Provides centralized protection against cyberattacks across OCI with a new cloud-native, managed firewall service.
• Oracle Threat Intelligence Service: Aggregates threat intelligence data across different sources and manages this data to provide actionable guidance for threat detection and prevention in Oracle Cloud Guard and other OCI services.
• Oracle Cloud Guard Threat Detector: Identifies misconfigured resources, insecure activity across tenants, and malicious threat activities.
• Oracle Security Zones: Expands Oracle Security Zones with support for customer-defined policy sets and integrated security posture monitoring with Cloud Guard
• Oracle Cloud Guard Fusion Applications Detector: Extends Oracle Cloud Guard beyond cloud security posture management for OCI to also monitor Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications and provide customers with a consolidated view of IaaS and SaaS security policies.

For Christopher G. Chelliah, Senior Vice President, Technology & Customer Strategy, Japan & Asia Pacific at Oracle Corporation, security should be foundational and built-in.  He explained that customers should not be forced to make a trade-off between cybersecurity and cost, especially in the cloud environment.

“Security in the cloud is always a joint responsibility between the provider and the customer and we urge customers to challenge their vendors about what they are doing to ensure they are constantly protected. Our aim is to take on more of that responsibility, whether through these new innovations, our ground up zero trust model, clear separation and isolation of tenancies, always-on encryption, or solutions like cloud guard, where we have ML and AI looking at attacks and putting a shield up against them,” commented Chelliah.

The post Can comprehensive cloud security capabilities protect businesses? appeared first on TechWire Asia.